Bricklaying in Hamworthy
Garden walls, piers, chimneys, crack repairs and extensions across Hamworthy, built to match what is already there.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Most brickwork in Hamworthy is the cavity wall of a sixties or seventies house or bungalow, plus the garden walls, piers and chimneys that go with it. We repair, rebuild and extend it, matched to the brick that is already there, and price it in writing after a free visit.
In Hamworthy, tree roots, heavy gates and weak window openings are what usually disturb brickwork. A front garden wall leaning toward the pavement, or cracked where a tree root has lifted it. A gate pier that moves when the gate swings. A crack running up through the bricks under a window. Or plans for an extension or a porch that need building properly from the footings up.
Thomas comes out, looks at the wall, the ground around it and whatever is pushing on it, and tells you whether it wants a repair, a partial rebuild or taking down and starting again.
The work
Garden walls, piers, chimneys and extensions
Garden and boundary walls. The low front walls on these streets were often built on a shallow footing with no damp proof course and a soft coping, so frost gets into the top course and roots push the bottom.
Where a section has leaned or cracked right through, it comes down, the footing is checked, and it goes back up in a matched brick with a proper coping on top. A typical Hamworthy front wall is two to four days. Before you rebuild a wall higher than it was, check the Planning Portal on garden walls, because height limits apply beside a road.
Gate piers. A pier carrying a heavy gate gets knocked out of plumb over the years. We take it down, and if the gate is heavy, rebuild it round a steel core so the hinges stay put.
Cracks and damaged bricks. A stepped crack along the joints is often old settlement that has stopped, and a clean repair is enough. A crack that is still widening needs its cause found first. Bricks with the face blown off by frost are cut out one at a time and replaced with a match, and where a lintel over a window has rusted and pushed the bricks above it, the lintel is replaced, not just the bricks.
Chimneys. Plenty of houses in Hamworthy have a single stack that no longer serves a fire. Some need rebuilding from the roof line, with new flaunching and lead, and some are better taken down below the tiles and the roof made good. Both are done off a scaffold.
Extensions and porches. Footings to the depth building control asks for, blockwork inner leaf, a cavity with wall ties and insulation, the damp proof course lined up with the house, lintels over the openings, and a facing brick picked to sit next to the original in English or stretcher bond as the house has it. Building on a shared boundary with next door means a notice under the Party Wall Act before we start.
Pointing. Where the bricks are sound but the mortar has gone, that is a repointing job, and it has its own page for Hamworthy.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing on a Hamworthy job is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repairs and like for like rebuilds of walls need no planning permission, while an extension needs building control and sometimes planning, as the Planning Portal explains. None of BCP Council's conservation areas takes in Hamworthy. The nearest, Town Centre Heritage, is across the water around the Old Town and the quay, and the council keeps the list. There are four listed entries on this side, The Old Rectory among them, and most changes to one of those need listed building consent first.
Cost
What decides the price of a brickwork job
No rate per square metre, because the metre of wall tells you almost nothing until you know what the joints are like.
Getting to it. A Hamworthy front garden wall on the pavement edge, a chimney on a two storey semi, and a single storey extension at the back of a bungalow are three different jobs to set up. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, a garden wall wants nothing. How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than an optional extra.
The joints, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow and is the only safe way on soft old brick. How deep the joints have to come out, and whether the brick faces have already spalled, decides the hours more than the area does.
The mix, and matching. Matching an existing mortar for colour, texture and strength takes trial panels. Matching a brick means sourcing it. Neither is a line most quotes make visible, and both are why two prices for the same wall can be so far apart.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are being raked and by hand or by disc, what the mortar mix is and whether it has been matched, how many bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is included. Those answers show whether the prices cover the same job.
If something has moved
Loose brickwork, or a wall that has shifted
Ring rather than use the form. Anything overhead or leaning goes to the front of the queue: a chimney with movement in it, a parapet, a garden wall pushed out by roots or a vehicle.
The first visit is about making it safe and stable, and we quote the permanent repair once we can see how far the movement goes. If a garden wall is leaning over the pavement on Blandford Road or any other busy footway, keep people clear of it and tell us that when you ring. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Wall ties in houses from the sixties and seventies
A cavity wall is two skins of masonry held together by metal wall ties. In houses from before the early 1980s those ties were often mild steel with a thin galvanised coat, and after forty or fifty years they rust. Rust expands, so each tie slowly jacks the outer skin apart along the joint it sits in. The sign is a horizontal crack in the mortar every few courses, running along the wall, sometimes with the brickwork bulging slightly.
That matters in Hamworthy because so much of it was built in exactly that period, and because a peninsula with open water on three sides sees a lot of wind-driven rain, which keeps the outer leaf wet for longer. BS 8104 is the standard used to assess that exposure. If you see those horizontal cracks, repointing them will not help. The ties need checking, usually with a borescope through a drilled hole, and if they have failed, remedial ties go in and the old ones are isolated or taken out before any cracks are made good.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Hamworthy is BH15, across the harbour from Poole Quay and about 7.7 miles from our base in Boscombe. We cover the whole peninsula, from Lower Hamworthy and Carter's Quay by the bridges, through Central Hamworthy and Lake, out to Rockley and Cobbs Quay, and Turlin Moor on the Upton side.
BCP Council is the planning and building control authority. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free. Before you book a visit in Hamworthy, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Hamworthy?
Most repairs in Hamworthy need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Hamworthy |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Hamworthy. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Hamworthy, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Hamworthy. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Hamworthy. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Hamworthy
Can you match the bricks on my house?
We can usually match them closely. We take a brick or a photograph to the merchants and compare, and on a larger job we can build a small sample panel for you to see first. New brick always looks fresher for the first year or two.
Should my garden wall be repaired or rebuilt?
If it is sound and only the top course and coping have gone, a repair. If it leans, rocks or is cracked right through, the footing has usually failed and it needs rebuilding from the ground.
How long does a garden wall take?
Most front walls are two to four days, including taking down the old one. Rain and frost stop new brickwork, so we plan around the forecast.
Do I need to tell my neighbour?
For a shared wall or an extension on the boundary, yes, and the Party Wall Act may require formal notice. For work wholly on your side, it is still a courtesy to let them know about the scaffold and the noise.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Hamworthy
Nearby places we also cover for bricklaying, with straight-line distances from Hamworthy, and the other trades we offer in Hamworthy itself.
Bricklaying nearby
Our other trades in Hamworthy
Brickwork and repointing guides
Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Single storey extension: planning and building regs Subsidence cracks: which ones matterEverything we do in Hamworthy Bricklaying, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price for your brickwork in Hamworthy
Tell us what the wall is doing and send a photo if you can. We look at the cause as well as the crack, and the quote comes in writing.